Metabolism is the body's process of converting ingested substances to other compounds. Metabolism involves a number of processes, one of which is referred to as oxidation. Through oxidation, alcohol is detoxified and removed from the blood, preventing the alcohol from accumulating and harming cells and organs. Until all the alcohol consumed has been metabolized, it is distributed throughout the body, affecting the brain, liver, and other tissues and organs.
When alcohol is consumed, it is absorbed into the blood from the stomach and intestines. Alcohol is then metabolized through the action of enzymes. Specifically, in the liver, alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) mediates the conversion of alcohol to acetaldehyde.
Acetaldehyde is then quantitatively oxidized to acetic acid in the presence of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) and nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide (NAD).

Acetate is eventually metabolized to carbon dioxide and water.
Alcohol also is metabolized in the liver by cytochrome P450IIE1 (CYP2E1), which may be increased after chronic drinking.
The microsomol ethanol oxidizing system (MEOS) is also involved in alcohol metabolism. Ethanol induces MEOS activity while lowering ALDH activity (Lebsack, M. E., E. R. Gordon, and C. S. Lieber, 1981 “Effect of chronic ethanol consumption on aldehyde dehydrogenase activity in the baboon” Biochem. Pharmacol. 30:2273-2277); therefore, acetaldehyde and reactive oxygen species accumulate upon chronic or high consumption of ethanol. These toxic molecules can cause cell injury through lipid peroxidation, protein inactivation and DNA damage.
The liver can metabolize only a certain amount of alcohol per hour. The rate of alcohol metabolism depends, in part, on the amount of metabolizing enzymes in the liver, which varies among individuals and has genetic determinants. In general, after the consumption of one standard drink, the amount of alcohol in the drinker's blood (blood alcohol concentration, or BAC) peaks within 30 to 45 minutes. Alcohol is metabolized more slowly than it is absorbed. Since the metabolism of alcohol is slow, alcohol can accumulate in the body and intoxication occurs.
A number of factors influence the process of alcohol absorption, including the presence of food and the type of food in the gastrointestinal tract when alcohol is consumed. The rate at which alcohol is absorbed depends on how quickly the stomach empties its contents into the intestine. For example, the higher the dietary fat content, the more time this emptying will require and the longer the process of absorption will take.
Thus, dietary components can affect ethanol absorption and metabolism. Ethanol absorption is controlled mainly by gastric emptying, because the primary region of ethanol absorption is the small intestine. Vegetable oils such as soybean oil and coconut oil delay the elimination rate of gastric ethanol and lessen the increase in plasma ethanol concentration. Moreover, because ethanol-metabolizing enzymes such as ADH, ALDH and MEOS contribute to the clearance of ethanol and toxic acetaldehyde, components that stimulate these enzyme activities are expected to ameliorate alcohol toxicity. For example, sesamin and garlic stimulate ethanol metabolism, especially acetaldehyde clearance (Yang, Z, Y. Suwa, K. Hirai et al. 1995, “Effects of sesamin on ethanol-induced muscle relaxation” J. Jpn. Soc. Nutr. Food Sci. 48:103-108; and Kishimoto, R., M. Ueda, H. Yoshinaga, K. Goda, S.-S. Park (1999) “Combined effects of ethanol and garlic on hepatic ethanol metabolism in mice” J. Nutr. Sci. Vitaminol. 45:275-286).
There are also differences in alcohol metabolism based on gender. Women absorb and metabolize alcohol differently from men. Women tend to have higher BAC's after consuming the same amount of alcohol as men and are more susceptible to alcoholic liver disease, heart muscle damage, and brain damage. The difference in BAC's between women and men has been attributed to women's smaller amount of body water. An additional factor contributing to the difference in BAC's may be that women have lower activity of the alcohol metabolizing enzyme ADH in the stomach, causing a larger proportion of the ingested alcohol to reach the blood.
Alcohol consumption and metabolism can have very important health consequences. For example, although moderate doses of alcohol added to the diets of lean men and women do not seem to lead to weight gain, some studies have reported weight gain when alcohol is added to the diets of overweight persons.
Also, alcohol metabolism alters the balance of reproductive hormones in men and women. In men, alcohol metabolism contributes to testicular injury and impairs testosterone synthesis and sperm production. Prolonged testosterone deficiency may contribute to feminization in males, for example, breast enlargement.
In women, alcohol metabolism may contribute to increased production of a form of estrogen called estradiol (which contributes to increased bone density and reduced risk of coronary artery disease) and to decreased estradiol metabolism, resulting in elevated estradiol levels.
Chronic heavy drinking appears to activate the enzyme CYP2E1, which may be responsible for transforming the over-the-counter pain reliever acetaminophen (TYLENOL) into chemicals that can cause liver damage. Alcohol consumption affects the metabolism of a wide variety of other medications, increasing the activity of some and diminishing the activity, thereby decreasing the effectiveness, of others.
In addition to possible life-threatening drug interactions and long-term potential deleterious effects of alcohol intoxication on various organs and systems, alcohol consumption and intoxication can result in short-term, but very unpleasant or inconvenient, effects. These effects, commonly collectively referred to as a “hangover,” can include, for example, headaches, nausea, and fatigue. Many hangover “remedies” have been proposed with mixed success. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,221,358 and 6,485,758.
The problems associated with alcohol intoxication and hangovers can be particularly acute for individuals having a genetic variation that reduces their natural ability to metabolize and detoxify alcohol. Asian populations (including, for example Chinese and Japanese) inherit primarily the active ADH2 variant whereby alcohol is rapidly converted to acetaldehyde, but they also primarily inherit the inactive AIDH22 gene whereby the toxic acetaldehyde is not converted to acetate, so it accumulates in the blood. A systemic adverse reaction ensues.
Soybeans are consumed in Japan as part of an ordinary diet. Tofu and “edamame,” boiled fresh soybeans, are popular snacks to consume with alcohol, although few reports have been published about the effect of soy products on ethanol consumption. However, isoflavones prepared from the crude extract of Pueraria lobata are used as a traditional medicine for anti-inebriation and suppress alcohol intake by alcohol-preferring rats (Lin, R. C., S. Guthrie, C. Y. Xie et al. 1996 “Isoflavonoid compounds extracted from Pueraria lobata suppress alcohol preference in a pharmacogenetic rat model of alcoholism” Alcohol Clin. Exp. Res. 20:659-663; and Overstreet, D. H., Y. W. Lee, A. H. Rezvani et al. 1996 “Suppression of alcohol intake after administration of the Chinese herbal medicine, NPI-028, and its derivatives” Alcohol Clin. Exp. Res. 20:221-227). The major components of the extract, daidzin and daidzein, are inhibitors in vitro of mitochondrial low Km ALDH (Keung, W.-M. and B. L. Vallee, 1993, “Daidzin: a potent, selective inhibitor of human mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90:1247-1251) and ADH (W. M. Keung, 1993, “Biochemical studies of a new class of alcohol dehydrogenase inhibitors from Raix puerarae” Alcohol Clin. Exp. Res. 17:1254-1260), whereas intragastric or intraperitoneal injection of daidzin to rodents does not affect these enzyme activities (Keung, W.-M., O. Lazo, L. Kunze, B. L. Vallee, 1995 “Daidzin suppresses ethanol consumption by Syrian golden hamsters without blocking acetaldehyde metabolism” Pro. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92:8990-8993; and Xie, C. I., R. C. Lin, V. Antony et al., 1994 “Daidzin, an antioxidant isoflavonoid, decreases blood alcohol levels and shortens sleep time induced by ethanol intoxication” Alcohol Clin. Exp. Res. 18:1443-1447).
Kano et al., who studied the effects of soymilk (SM) products, including fermented soymilk (FSM), on ethanol absorption and metabolism (“Soymilk Products Affect Ethanol Absorption and Metabolism in Rats during Acute and Chronic Ethanol Intake,” Kano, M., F. Ishikawa, S. Matsubara, H. Kikuchi-Hayakawa and Y. Shimakawa, Yakult Central Institute for Microbiological Research, Yaho 1796, Kunitachi, Tokyo 186-8650, Japan, J. Nutr. 132:238-244, 2002), found that soy products inhibit ethanol absorption and enhance ethanol metabolism, and that isoflavones may be the active factors. Soy isoflavones have antioxidative activity, acting to reinforce the system. It was also found that soy products improve parameters of cell injury due to chronic ethanol exposure and that soymilk products contribute to the suppression of ethanol-induced cell injury.
Soy products appear to alter ethanol metabolism through inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP)2E1 in MEOS. Chae et al. (Chae, Y.-H., C. B. Marcus, D. K. Ho et al., 1991, “Effects of synthetic and naturally occurring flavonoids on benzojalpyrene metabolism by hepatic microsomes prepared from rats treated with cytochrome P-450 inducers” Can. Lett. 60:15-24) reported that genistein is a potent inhibitor of CYP1A1 and/or CYP1A2 induced by β-naphthoflavone, and Ronis et al. (Ronis, M. J., J. C. Rowlands, R. Hakkak and T. M. Badger, 1999, “Altered expression and glucocorticoid-inducibility of hepatic CYP3A and CYP2B enzymes in male rats fed diets containing soy protein isolate” J. Nutr. 129:1958-1965) found that soy protein increases the dexamethasone-induced mRNA expression of hepatic CYP3A2 compared with casein, suggesting a relationship between soy components and the cytochrome P450 system, although the effects of soy components on CYP2E1 are not yet known. Thus, the consumption of soy products contributes to the prevention of ethanol-induced liver injury through enhancement of ethanol metabolism and the antioxidation system.
Despite the availability of certain strategies for reducing hangovers, there remains a great need for better approaches to enhance alcohol metabolism and detoxification, especially for certain Asians, and others, who have a reduced ability to metabolize alcohol into non-toxic compounds.